MYSTERY: The Practices of QiGong and Authentic Movement

Energy Orb caught on camera at Confuscious' Burial Ground

Authentic Movement (AM) is an "in-depth" movement process named by Mary Starks Whitehouse (a dance therapist) in the 1950's.  It is the act of allowing oneself to listen deeply to the innate intelligence of the full body and following the body/voice’s cues in the moment, while a trusted facilitator witnesses, is holding the container for the mover’s expression. What transpires is an authentic expression, true and spontaneous from moment to moment, often revealing understanding and information not usually accessible. "The movement becomes ‘authentic’ when the individual is able to allow their intuitive impulses to freely express themselves without intellectual directive, as opposed to movement initiated by conscious decision making – a distinction which may appear clear, but practically a challenge. Individuals simply pay attention to what they feel at a sensory level, since 'the core of the movement experience is the sensation of moving and being moved.'”*

*Adler, Janet. Offering from the Conscious Body: The Discipline of Authentic Movement. Rochester: Inner Traditions, 2002.


My decades long study of both Qigong and Authentic Movement has been a search to understand this thing we call energy and the relationship of the body's fuller intelligence to that which is inside and outside of me.  For me, AM and Qigong are not separate practices, but one practice that is a many sided prism, reflecting their own unique emphasis.  

The following essay was first posted in http://authenticmovementcommunity.blogspot.com/ and http://www.healingtaobritain.com .  SEE for more articles of interest on both practices.

MYSTERY.doc 29K   View

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObLgFrbP-AQ

Meddle with Nettle

Attraction is a funny thing.  One week, you're going about your life, business as usual, and the following week there are all these impressions that don't let go.  Like herbs for me lately.  First it started with wanting fresh herbs in everything: foods I cook, juices I juice, teas and infusions.  Then it seemed to expand into tinctures and finding my way back via internet to long lost "ideology buddies" like Susun Weed www.susunweed.com and Corinna Wood www.sewisewomen.com/classes/about_corinna.php (wise woman herbalists; see Corinna's article below) whom I have followed for years and with whom I keep saying I'm going to study, the integrity of their products are so remarkable.

So researching one herb, I came across another-- repeatedly.  Nettle.  Nettle's extreme nutritional value and prickly nature (hard to get at without a few stings) make them completely charming to me (same for people and animals with similar characteristics).

Nettle: My Favorite Herb for Women
by Corinna Wood


As always, it is always best to consult with your health care practitioner when taking herbal medicines or when considering any before-mentioned health practices.

Dooo Be Dooo Be Do

Through non-action, no action is left undone.  --Lao Tzu

How frequent is the experience of standing in front of a client (friend or stranger) mired in the tension of what to say or do? Often. In a consulting circumstance, when I am being paid for my "expertise" to guide, direct or give advice, occasionally I notice a small part of me off to the side patiently suggesting, "Breathe.  Just Listen."

The tendency to Do.  The power of Be.

There is something incredibly impelling about the Doing. Maybe it is because there is a self-comfort in acting through kinesthetic sensibilities.  Or perhaps it is the indoctrination of the caretaking arts which make Doing a knee jerk reaction in most situations.  The longer I live, the more I know the incredible power and healing of doing nothing.

"Nothing" is not really nothing, of course.  Nothing being, finding or waiting for the stillness which stays long enough to create a breathing space, a release of the tension that has held me up to that point.  A space that isn't filled in with words and actions.

Before the Nothing, somehow quiet moves in.  How does this organism, restrained by whatever tension is in the moment, wake to the stillness? What intrigues me is that (sacred?) moment right before, which makes more of an availability to the stillness, the nothing, possible.

This dance that goes on, the Do Be Do Be Do, the back and forth, is earning the sense of the place of Being and the relationship to the Doing.  It's the price we pay for eventual understanding (hopefully).

                  "Wisdom comes with the ability to be still. Just look and just listen. No more is
                   needed. Being still, looking, and listening activates the non-conceptual
                   intelligence within you. Let stillness direct your words and actions."
                                                                                      ECKHART TOLLE, Stillness Speaks

Food Glorious Food

photo by: the excellent Peter Schlosser

I moved to Philadelphia for a lot of reasons.  Most of those reasons I wasn't consciously aware of until I got here. Within a month of landing, I surprisingly realized one of the unconscious reasons I moved here was for the food. Not haute cuisine, but the plethora of farmer's markets manned by Amish guys (complete with those quintessential straw hats, curious chin beards and charming old-english accents) from local Lancaster County, non-foody cheese crafters from local Buck's County, several nearby Community Sustainable Agriculture (CSAs) and a very cool homegrown food co-op in my new neighborhood. There were farmer's markets from whence I came, but the culture that embraces and appreciates the fruits of the land and the gathering of community was absent.  Not so here.  Everyone and their grandmother's dog shows up for market and it's a communal symphony not to be missed.  Good food is here. Good for the eyes, good for the body, good for the soul.
So in this land of plenty, where fresh food abounds most places, how could food possibly be a reason for anyone to leave where they've been for forever? Well, Super Shop Rite's mile long aisle's had me cowering in choice confusion. Non-transparent Whole Foods had lost it's gloss and Omnivore's Dilemma  http://michaelpollan.com/books/the-omnivores-dilemma blew my sustainable-intrigued mind. Interests in biology, how the body works, chemical interactions, the relationship to how you feel often determined by what you put in your mouth-- it all makes me sit up.  I had somehow had come to appreciate good, honest food and no nonsense information on nutrition (not so easy to get in this day and age of questionable information overload).
Food.  Nutrition.  You probably already know quite a lot about it.  And the last thing you need is another "know it all" with their two cents telling you about how you should be eating.  No worries. That's your business afterall.  
But what I will do is share with you the following clear, non-preachy article that I think is extremely good, and which I refer to often because it is succinct in laying out the facts (even though I have some questions about some of them). A bonus is, you can sense the ground-spring of kindness at its informational center.  And everybody needs a little kindness, especially in relation to one's particular food choices. 

Nutrition - The Wise Woman Way

QiGong: Following in a Purpose-Prone World

With cotton gloves on to protect your hands, you climb the near vertical
ascent, pulling on the chain links, following the hand carved stone steps
someone made for you 800 years ago.

Most of us are sold on the concept of having a purpose, being productive, having daily aims we apply strong focusing abilities toward. We celebrate leaders, leadership skills and might feel a little smug more often than not that we aren't one of those follower-types.  For myself, I am challenging this today. Most non-western methods in medicine and spiritual work are about following.  That is watching, actively listening, acutely observing and taking cues from subtle responses of the organism. Today, I wish to be less superficially informed in my actions and more embodied (inclusive of the body's fuller intelligence) when I specifically direct energy (in action, words, even thoughts)

Following is a story of holistic nursing in action with this in mind.

Nights are when the babies get weighed, washed and fed and I'm in the 'crying room', stripping and dipping these brand new infants. I am incredulous of all the screaming that goes on during this activity. I somehow think it should be a sensual, pleasurable activity for everyone, but for all the years I've done this or watched it being done by others, it's a perfunctory exercise, something to get through. I have a hypothesis I want to test: babies will cry less, be more at ease if you listen to their body language, and follow their qi (energy) while bathing them. So I try this. I undress them, weigh them, handle them as I drip water over them, wipe their bodies down. It's really interesting. When my attention is on myself and them, I surprisingly find them arching backwards, leading with the crown of their head or going in directions I usually (in my role as nurse) counter or "right." As I meet them where they want to be, I can feel in their little bodies the recognition of me listening to and following them. Besides occasional squawks, my kids are fairly quiet when I bathe them. This draws attention to me and them and the veteran baby nurses come over, watch and ask, "what are you doing there?... what's going on?"

It's not an easy job 'listening' to a wet baby's energy and following it. It requires all my attention and I find myself exhausted after doing this with three kids. But this incredible raw openness they have and the subsequent tensions and relaxations sensed in their bodies as one handles them with attention is quite remarkable. When I let them be what and who they are without trying to "right" or control them, their contentedness appears complete. Their perfect and still containment while feeding after this "Qi" bath is inspiring.

The Art of being a Play-er

One of the four tenets of the stress management program I teach is Spirit Work.  This is probably the most misunderstood and resisted of the "four treasures" as I call them.  Most adults don't want to be told how to have a spiritual or religious life, how to meditate or pray (and rightly so). What often isn't considered a part of "spirit work" is play.  And play is something most adults have gotten out of the habit of doing since puberty, or when the prospect of taking SATs descended on their horizon.

Play can take many forms and morphs as we move through life's continuum.  For someone who loved the activity of playing basketball or a musical instrument as a child, they sometimes find that the activity has changed into something else entirely by the time adulthood or middleage has arrived.  It no longer has "fun" attached to its description, but is more an effort at reliving what was once felt when engaging in it.  A young man of 25 years once admitted to me he didn't know how to have fun or what fun was anymore.  The drinking, skateboarding and hanging out he did as a late teen/early 20 year old no longer carried a thrill.  The truth of play changes as we age.  It's important to maintain it as it alters itself through our lives because of the stress-relieving, endorphin producing, spirit-enhancing ability it has in helping us maintain homeostasis/ wellness. Play is a deep aspect of what it means to be human, no matter who you are, no matter how old you are.

What constitutes play at any age? From play, delight, satisfaction, pleasure and humor often erupt. Play begins with curiosity and an availability of more of myself.  Interest is born and openness follows. A true mark of an ability to play can physiologically be found in the state of our breath.  When it has deepened, moving from the lower diaphragm and is markedly more regular, there is a decrease in tension.  This happens at play; when doing well or being good, or the concern over the product or performance produced is minimal, but the interest in the process of being fully in the activity is paramount. This can be witnessed in young children.  At play, they are exploring themselves and their boundaries, absorbed in the now of it. It can be seen in artists, craftsmen or wordsmiths delving deeply into their craft, so much so they can enter an altered state.  They, like children are in a union of sorts. The art of playing. The work of spirit.

Play is available in almost any activity.  In the above image of a basin of dirty dishes, play is possible.  Something opens in the visual interest of a round shape inside of a rectangular one; of a soap bubble pattern laying erratically over the top, somehow pleasing to the senses.  Play can be the impression (and enjoyment) of warm sudsy water running across skin, the sense of the quality of the shape of an object when wiping a sponge around it, the weight of a bowl.  Obviously, another part of us is present when the mundane chore of doing dishes, done a zillion times before, takes on a quality of interest and pleasure.  Some would call this a mindful state or being present. Those terms ring with a type of (heavy?) seriousness (not that play can't be serious-- watch a 3 year old bounce a ball for the first time).  Since I'm feeling a bit frisky at the moment, I shall dare to call it play.

Adaptogens: Love in a bottle

Staving off winter blahs with Adaptogens

I first learned of adaptogens in my master’s program back in 2006.  The first winter I used them was an experience of having a miracle panacea.  I had none of the SAD symptoms or weariness that was the usual adult winter I had known previously.  

Reconfirming this experience for myself was working with a middleaged woman this winter in a health coaching scenario.  She had slid into the holiday/winter tendancy of eating too much sugar/processed foods, decreased exercise and succumbing to the normal stressors of the season. By reintroducing her general vitamin, B-12, nano green drink, a cleansing vegetable juice for one meal a day and starting on adaptogens, her rheumatoid arthritis flare which had been unabated for 6 weeks was eliminated within 3 days.

Adaptogens.  They are sublime!  My personal favorites are Astragalus, Ginkgo and Gotu Kola (not mentioned in the attached article). Like Love in a bottle; they support, nurture and bring us around again.  They are wonderful deep cellular effecting herbs.

As always, it is always best to consult with your health practitioner when taking herbal medicines or when considering any beforementioned health practices.

Attached is a refreshing, cogent article by Susan Stanton that talks about adaptogens, their history and benefits.  

ADAPTOGENS: Herbs for Stress in Any Season.pdf 125K   View as HTML   Download

O, You Beauty You

Dragon navigating the deep

She's a new nurse. She plops herself in front of me at the nurse's station, exasperated.  "I don't know what to do with this patient.  He refuses to take any medications, he has verbally abused every case worker who has walked in there, 

 calling them a fat cow, spitting at staff.  He won't deal with me.  What would you do?" I feel a host of things in the moment. I first see her.  She's beautiful; young, open, wanting to do good. I feel how brave she is.  Admitting not knowing, something I myself avoided as a new nurse. Than I feel my age.  She's reminded me, I'm older than her, she thinks I know something she doesn't.  I sit squarely in front of her.  I ask her to tell me what she knows about the patient.  She tells me the social part of his history being, his son called the medics after he found the patient not being able to get off the floor of his home for three days.  He was covered in his own excrement, having smeared it over walls and floors and brow beaten his wife into not calling for medical help earlier. I say, "So outside his primary medical diagnosis, we know a few other things. He's got a mental illness, he's got little control over his situation and he's terrified.  What do you, as a nurse want to do, what's a priority?"  "I want him to take his medication."  This reply reminds me of our indoctrination in the medical system.  We nurses have a job.  In the pursuit of doing our job, we forget our calling. We adhere and attach to the control inherent in the act of caretaking and become distanced to our own humanity and that of others. I say, "Put on your compassion hat.  He requires you make a relationship with him. He won't cooperate without that, and you will need the boundary setting on your end, he's big into manipulating.  He needs some control back.  You might want to address his terror."  She looks at me.  It's a different angle.  She pops up out of the chair, like only a hopeful 20-something can, and heads off to his room.  I give her a few minutes before I go stand at the patient's door to eavesdrop, interested in seeing what she creates. From my partially hidden viewpoint, I find her squatting at the bedside, eye level with him in the bed. Wow, I think, she IS brave to do that with a known spitter and shit-slinger. I can hear her being in her heart. She's calm and real with him and I hear him being responsive to this.  Well done I think, as I move back to the nurse's station. She returns ecstatic.  "He won't take the medication now, but has agreed to take it in an hour."  Good job, I tell her.  

In an hour she comes to me deflated. "He only took one pill out of the six he is supposed to take.  God, I can't believe it. I failed."  Hurdles.  I ask her which pill he took and she says what amounts to the most needed pill out of the six.  I tell her congratulations.  She connected with somebody almost impossible to connect to and he was able to move an inch by taking the major medication he needs. He's still terrified of losing control, that's a long term challenge she started to help him meet.  It's not overnight or instantaneous. It's one engagement at a time, one pill at a time. She didn't fail.  She began making relationship.

Grief and the Heart's Desire

"Wish" locks on Mt Huashan
In China, when you want something seemingly unattainable, you climb
the nearest mountain with a red tie and a padlock.  Upon arriving,
you pray to the deities for your desire, and lock the tie and padlock on a thick
chain link securing your wish for all time.

I am shadowing some holistic nurses in a hospital and we find ourselves in the ICU doing rounds.  We come upon "Louise" a 78 year old woman who had a heart attack in the morning and looks like she is about to have another one.  She 

is sitting straight up in bed, grey and diaphoretic.  She is on a cardiac monitor and her blood pressure and heart rate are climbing.  She looks in distress, having a hard time breathing.  Two ICU nurses run to get the crash cart and some Ativan to calm her down.  There we are, three holistic nurses staring at this woman about to go down.  I step forward up to the side of the bed and say, "Louise. Who do you love more than anyone in the world?"  She doesn't hesitate and says, "My seven year old granddaughter, Eva."  I say, "Ok. Eva is going to help us get through this.  She's going to help us cool your heart down.  I want you to close your eyes and breathe in through your nose to the count of four and breathe out to the count of six."  I breathe and count with her, and she begins to look less distressed, the blood pressure on the monitor begins to drop to a high normal (the parasympathetic nervous system having kicked in producing the relaxation response). I say, "Louise, with your eyes closed bring Eva's face up close to yours.  See how the light falls on her hair, the twinkle in her eye. How does her breath smell as she comes in for a kiss on your cheek?  How does her laugh sound when she says your name?  Let Eva breathe with us now, a nice cool breath, four counts in, six counts out.  Now as we are breathing, allow her image to slowly drop down around your mid chest, where your heart is and we're just going to breathe there for a bit, you, me and Eva and we are going to cool the heart down." Louise almost appears to be in a trance state.  All this transpires within three minutes. The two ICU nurses have rushed back with their meds and crash cart and stop short when they see her apparently meditating and the monitor reading normal vital signs.  When Louise opens her eyes, we talk about this event.  I ask her what happened.  She told me the story of losing both her husband and son 6 months apart a year ago in the ICU. She's afraid it will happen to her too.  When she starts to escalate again, I tell her she can repeat having Eva come to her any time.  I watch her gracefully move through it.  

  

Grief Work

2000 year old elder

Grief work is a very necessary activity as we navigate our life's continuum.  There is a lot to grieve about.  It can be, however, uncomfortable and often frightening territory to traverse for many, conditioned as we are to be "up", "fine" and able to manage anything with chronically sunny dispositions. In western culture, it's not a readily accepted undertaking, or is often mislabeled as depression; hence there isn't a lot of support for it.  So when we make an inquiry into that dark place, it can be lonely, foreign and well.... dark.

After a series of significant losses, I found myself in a grocery store following a carriage with a baby in it. I experienced the baby seeing me.  Seeing me in my loss.  I hadn't felt seen in this way by anyone up to that point, being an invisible grief-stricken pedestrian to be avoided at all costs. When the baby saw me, I felt this surge of joy in my solar plexus that stopped abruptly at the top of my diaphragm, as it ascended up, as if there was a lid on the rest of me.  It couldn't move up to my heart, the space occupied by the necessary grief.  I realized, this grief was living in me and it had its own time and this surge of joy would have to wait a bit to complete itself.  Surprisingly, this didn't add to my sadness, but actually gave me hope.

I've had the privilege to do tremendously varied grief work with myself and others.  It is dense and rich material that affirms our humanity, if the courage can be found to meet it.  Following is an essay on creatively using energy / movement work to address grief.  Holistic Grief Work

All for one and one for all........

I've taken apart my last posting, in hopes pieces of it will be more manageable for those of you with nano seconds to spare!  "Pieces" of it will appear periodically. The whole of course,  will always remain.  Cheers!

Photo by Kelly McCoy Swann

Living a life that matters doesn't happen by accident. It's not a matter of circumstance but ofchoice.  Choose to live a life that matters-- Clarissa Pinkole Estes 


No one can get intravenous access on her and she is terrified of needles.  I decide to do guided imagery with her, as I've seen people's veins relax and plump up when I do this practice and it seems to go much easier for them.  So I explain everything to the patient, what we're going to try and she looks skeptical, but ok she'll give it a go.  I do the scenario I've been using a lot lately with women.  I ask them their favorite flower and color and then we go through opening the five senses to the image of the flower going from a tightly closed bud to it being in its fullest glory.  I'm breathing with the woman and then I notice how distracted from the experience she is; she's not getting into it.  And then I notice, how bored and disengaged I am.  I am so bored with this well practiced scenario! It's not working for her. It's not working for me. Ok, let's get with the program.  I look around the room to get a clue as to who this woman is. She has books stacked everywhere.  I say, “So, you like to read.”  And she brightens up, saying yes and describes her life long affair with the written word.  I ask her if she knows the book The Three Musketeers and she says, of course.  I say, "do you know that familiar phrase from the book, 'one for all and all for one'?" and she smiles.  "Well, that's what we're doing here.  You need an IV to get this really important medicine. So we have to get all of you on board with this-- it's all for one and one for all time."  She totally gets this.  She breathes, thinks of her flower and in goes the needle, giving her access. "Cool," she says.  Cool, indeed.  This  experience reminds me how necessary it is for me to be engaged.  This business isn't automatic. One has to be in the moment. It can't be repeated. Every hard stick is different, because every person is different.  We all have similar equipment, but these subtle differences in one's humanity impact each body's response.